


Brother Wolf, Sister Eagle

by manic_intent



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Haytham meets Connor instead, M/M, Note: VERY LIGHT R, Slash, Spoilers for the Tyranny of King Washington, That AU of an AU of an AU, Tyranny of King Washington AU, Where Haytham and Connor are unrelated, and instead of meeting Ziio on that slaver wagon, extremely sketchy use of AU of an AU of an AU Kanien'kehake belief systems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 03:14:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt on the kmeme: AU where Haytham and Connor are unrelated, and Haytham rescues Connor instead of Ziio on that wagon to Silas. Set in Tyranny of King Washington 'verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brother Wolf, Sister Eagle

**Author's Note:**

> And just to purge Assassin bunny, which has snuck up on the Dragon Hobbit bunny with Assassin stealth. BTW, this is pretty much an AU of an AU of an AU (an AU of Tyranny of Washington of AC3 rofl), so forgive me if I play really fast and loose with Mohawk customs and beliefs. Washington is still king, Connor is still 19, and he doesn't know and is unrelated to Haytham, who is the same age as he is at this point in AC3 in the real game. Get it? No incest AU.
> 
> "..." - English  
> '...' - Kanien'kéha

I.

The big native watched him unemotionally as Haytham disposed of the driver of the convoy and hid the body in a haystack, and he didn't even tense when Haytham pulled himself up into the driver's seat. Unlike the others, this would-be slave was hobbled at the wrists and ankles, a short length of chain connecting large iron rings on the shackles that locked to another ring at the base of the wagon. He was also dressed conspicuously, with a wolf's head hood and leather bracers; belts crossed his broad chest, and his hands were callused from the use of various weapons. Black streaks ran from his eyes, and lines were painted along his ribs, spiked with triangles.

Curious. Some sort of important figure, perhaps. Haytham would have to ask Johnson later for the details. But for now, perhaps the prisoner could prove helpful. 

"My name is Haytham Kenway," Haytham offered, as he urged the horses to move again, at a signal over on the rooftop of a barn from Charles that the way was clear. "I am your ally."

The wolf-hooded prisoner made no comment, even glancing away, as though disinterested. Haytham couldn't quite pinpoint his age, but he looked young, perhaps in his twenties. Slightly irritated at being ignored, Haytham continued, "Do you speak English? French?"

Again, silence, at least until Charles and the others swiftly brought down and oncoming bluecoat patrol and dragged the bodies away behind a set of crates. The prisoner watched quietly, then he looked away, seemingly to a patch of clear roof on a farmhouse, odd, if Haytham didn't know that Johnson was there, following their route plans. 

"We'll let you go once we're inside the fort, and free your kinsmen," Haytham continued, keeping watch on the road as the wagon bumped and hobbled along the dirt path. "We mean you no harm."

"We do not need your help," the prisoner said neutrally, his English good, if slightly accented, and this time his glance was calculating as he looked Haytham over. His eyes were fierce, eagle-gold, a startlingly unusual colour for any child not born of the two worlds; Haytham blinked for a long moment before he remembered his irritation. 

"So you had some sort of master plan for freeing yourself from that get up? Do tell."

When he shrugged, the chain clinked together. "Eventually they will have had to unchain me."

"And then you'll take on the whole fort? Unarmed?"

"Nature will provide," the prisoner said, with an unsettlingly iron conviction.

"I've yet to see Nature provide a person with a bulletproof cloak, my friend," Haytham noted dryly.

"I am not your friend."

"Yes, you've been amply clear on that front. But since we have the same enemies at present, can we at least be allies?" The last thing he needed was for the big man to turn violent if he was freed, and cause some sort of ruckus. Finding and getting rid of Silas was going to be tricky enough. 

"We shall see." 

"You're not exactly making me feel more inclined to give you the keys to your shackles."

The prisoner frowned at this, and thought the matter over as Johnson and Hickey took care of another patrol, then as he watched them hide the bodies, he muttered, abruptly, "Fine. Allies, for now."

"There. That wasn't so hard now, was it?" 

The prisoner said nothing, turning to watch Charles and the others taking on another set of guards instead. He was watching with more than idle curiosity, Haytham noted; there was a predatory stillness in him, as though he was waiting - _learning_. It was interesting, for all that it was unexpected; the very few Natives whom Haytham had managed to meet through Johnson's connections had been a wary, fearful lot, broken by the ravages of Washington's unmitigated rampage through their ancestral grounds. 

They had no reason to trust anyone with white skin, Haytham told himself; in a way, they had suffered the most. The rebels had managed to hold out pockets of resistance with carefully hoarded gunpowder troves and fortifications - thick stone and artillery could keep that blasted device of Washington's at bay. The Iroquois had no such protection, and their villages had been burned, their children murdered, their women and men used as slaves. It was one of Washington's many crimes. 

Haytham was feeling better about his decision to let the prisoner go by the time he brought the wagon to a stop inside the fort. With no further need for his ruse, he unlocked the prisoner's cuffs, then tossed him the keys before getting off the wagon, signalling for Charles to get into position. "We'll free your people," Haytham told the prisoner, who was getting to his feet, rubbing cramped shoulders. "Concentrate on protecting those in the convoy."

Ignored again - the prisoner stepped off the wagon without even a nod, rounding to the back of the wagon to free his people. Swallowing his irritation, Haytham made his way to the nearest patch of thick undergrowth. Considering how rare kindness was in the world of late, was it so difficult to expect some modicum of gratitude?

1.0.

Perched high on a branch, Ratonhnhaké:ton watched Kenway steal away back towards Boston with his companions, their stolen uniforms bloody to the elbows. They had been as good as their word, and his people were safe - at least for now.

On his shoulder, the phantom claws of Sister sank briefly and painlessly through his flesh, as she shifted her wings and ruffled translucent feathers. He could feel her mind, an eagle-spirit mind, of sharp edges and wind and flight, and she was curious, as he was curious. It would not be so hard to borrow her wings and sweep down, to land on Kenway's back and break his spine, but Ratonhnhaké:ton kept his hands closed over the rough bark, and breathed.

Sister watched, unblinking, then she settled back, as though approving of his choice. Ratonhnhaké:ton glanced at her, surprised - that was new - but she ignored his silent question, her mind flickering into wind, into movement. He borrowed her wings, bringing them to another tree, and skipped branch to branch, until they were on the outskirts of Boston. Kenway had already disappeared, presumably to sneak around the blockade to the less guarded supply routes, or to the outlying townships that had sprung up further and further away from Boston, wary of the iron grasp of Washington's power. 

He took them both to the ground and the Brothers padded out from the spirit lands, snuffling at the ground and at his shoulders, and at his glance they sniffed at the ground, circling, until they picked out a set of tracks that led deep into the thick grass. Sister flew him back up to the trees, and they wove through the forest, stopping to wait now and then while the Brothers played and remembered and found the scent again, until they reached a outskirts of a small fort, newly built, judging from the colour of the carved trucks that spiked the stone perimeter. It flew no flag, but Ratonhnhaké:ton could see the hint of red uniforms within. A rebel fort. 

Kenway was just outside, talking to one of his minions, and on an impulse and at a thought Ratonhnhaké:ton took himself into thick grass close by, the Brothers back at his flanks, their tongues lolling out from their jaws. They were amused, and were thinking of play, of the soft grass and soil under their paws, of teeth and nips and wrestling, and he shook his head at them; they ignored him, and butted at each other, flowing around and through the grass.

"... he will come to us," Kenway was saying, to his minion. "I know he will, Charles. Call it a hunch."

"I hope that you are right," Charles replied, sounding openly skeptical. "And that the Grandmaster is correct in believing that this Precursor site holds the key to defeating Washington."

Ratonhnhaké:ton frowned, and nearly held his breath before he remembered himself. Like the Brothers in hunt, he was the shadow, he was the earth; he was nothing.

"We've had no luck in finding this site by ourselves," Kenway exhaled heavily. "Perhaps I am grasping at straws. The natives have lived on this land for centuries. They will know where it is." 

"I do not doubt that," Charles replied, glancing into the forest, "But Johnson's had no luck getting them to trust us." 

"They do still talk to him, and that makes me hopeful. Perhaps they can get that wolf-hooded man a message for me. He's unusual, and Johnson thinks that he's heard of him. Surely we have a common enemy. He'll be reasonable, I should think."

"I hope that you are right, sir." 

The white men returned to the fort, and the great doors closed with a grinding moan. Ratonhnhaké:ton sat for a moment in the grass as the Brothers snapped at each others' flanks and dreamed of the chase and of the scent of fur and blood and prey, and it took him a while longer before he slipped back up onto a branch with ghostly wings. The Clan Mother would have to hear about this.

As always, however, speaking to the Clan Mother was somewhat of a trial, for all that she was his blood mother; she had never forgiven him, Teiowí:sonte and the others for taking strength from the Great Willow, for all that Connor felt that it was little different from the spirit journey he had taken under his grandmother's guidance when he had first come of age. She did not trust Sister or the Brothers, for all that the spirits and the Kanien'kehaka shared the same Mother. Still, eventually she emerged from her longhouse, her lips pursed and her gaze sharp and flat before it softened, and she beckoned for him to follow her within.

They sat before the small fire, and Ratonhnhaké:ton tried not to think too far within, to before he had become a man, playing around the hearthfire while his mother conferred with his grandmother, preparing herself to take on leadership of the tribe. For all that he had done, for all the miles that he had run or flown on Sister's wings, a sharp glance from his mother was enough to make him feel small and awkward again.

'You did well today,' the Clan Mother began, and she smiled, a rare smile, if wan and wearily. "Our people are safe for now, and Kanen'tó:kon has arranged for the others to be escorted back to their tribes."

'I had help,' Ratonhnhaké:ton admitted, and he relayed what had happened, all the way to the conversation he had overheard at the fort. The Clan Mother frowned, her fingers going to her thick braid of hair, as she tilted her head, a sure sign that she was deep in thought, and he waited patiently, watching the flames. Sister and the Brothers never came with him into the longhouse, and he had no dreams to dip his fingers through, no scents or sights. Within the hearth of his mother he was alone, and not alone.

Finally, she said, 'I will have to think further about this,' a clear dismissal if anything, and he nodded, rising to his feet. Surprisingly, she too rose, and reached out to touch his elbow lightly as he turned to go. 'Be careful,' she murmured, and in her eyes, for a instant, was a mother's love and a mother's fear, before she turned away to watch the flames. Ratonhnhaké:ton stared briefly at her back, wondering if he should speak, but he padded away instead, out of the longhouse. The Brothers circled him briefly before Sister took him out of the village, sweeping through the trees until they were high up along a cliff, to where the Great Willow perched, keeping watch over eternity.

Kahionhaténion was alone, sitting cross-legged on a rock as he fletched arrows, and he glanced up as Sister dropped Ratonhnhaké:ton down beside him. He looked weary, and smiled in relief. 'Ratonhnhaké:ton! I heard that you were captured. Teiowí:sonte is hurrying back from Teyeondaroge. We were going to look for you together.'

'I escaped, with some help.' For the second time that day, Ratonhnhaké:ton found himself relating what had happened, and at the end, Kahionhaténion rubbed at his face, and at the lines of black paint that crossed down over his cheeks. Kahionhaténion's Sister was the cougar spirit, and she had marked his face as Sister and the Brothers had marked Ratonhnhaké:ton; he could not see her, but on his shoulder, Sister ruffled her feathers, and the Brothers prowled, teeth bared, silent. 

'I would not trust him,' Kahionhaténion said finally. 'They are all the same. They will use us if they can.'

'Perhaps,' Ratonhnhaké:ton murmured, and looked out over the great forest, under the boughs of the sacred willow. If he used Sister's eyes, he could almost make out Kenway's hidden fort, and he felt restless and unsettled. 'But if he knows of a weapon that can defeat Washington and his golden sphere, we will need it.'

II.

It had been pure chance that Haytham had caught sight of the wolf-hooded man in the woods when he had been trudging slowly and painfully through a snow drift towards a village to check on their supply lines. At his shout, the man frowned at him before he... _flickered_ , and then, to Haytham's great astonishment, he wasn't in the snow anymore.

He looked around wildly, then something prompted him to look up - and there the man was, perched on a branch like some sort of overgrown vulture, watching him.

"How the hell did you do that?" Haytham demanded.

There was a snort, and the man stood up, the branch somehow managing just as miraculously to hold his weight, as he looked away, as though about to go. "Wait," Haytham called, then added, sharply, "Wait, damn you!" when the wolf-hooded man merely flickered away, reappearing on another branch in another tree. 

Astonishment was pushed away by exasperation, and Haytham trudged through the snow, trying his best to follow the flickering form until he was finally exhausted, waist deep in snow, freezing, and thoroughly annoyed. He bent, trying to catch his breath, muttering curses between heaving gasps, and when he looked up, he nearly stumbled over backwards when he saw that the wolf-hooded man was now perched much closer, ten paces away, on a snow-covered rock that heaved out of the thick white blanket around it like a frozen whale. 

"What do you want?" the man asked shortly.

"To... talk... to... you... obviously..."

"Why. Are you. Speaking. So. Slowly?" 

"Very funny," Haytham scowled, and the man had the bloody gall to smirk briefly at him. "Really, how did you manage to jump from the ground up into the tree?"

"Magic," the man drawled, and Haytham wasn't certain if he was being serious or facetious. "Well? I heard that you had business with me." 

"You've taken lessons from Davenport." That had been the most surprising finding of all, from the reports. Apparently the wolf-hooded man had been seen before at the Davenport residence, more or less regularly, until Washington had burned the homestead and murdered the man. Pity. As much as they were on opposite sides, Haytham had carefully heeded the unspoken pact between himself and Davenport to leave each other alone, at least until Washington could be dealt with. With an enemy far greater than them both, even the Assassin and Templar rivalry had seemed pointless for the moment. 

"Some." There was a pause, then, "You are a Templar."

"That I am," Haytham admitted, surprised. "Davenport told you about the war?"

"He said that he was no longer part of it. That the relic that Washington holds would break the world if it could. My Clan Mother agreed. We tried to help him where we could." 

So that crippled, notoriously cantankerous Assassin had been enjoying better luck with the tribes. Briefly, Haytham wondered how Davenport had managed that. "But he could do little on his own, and now his recruits have been hanged. Your people have no allies left but us. I think that we can help each other."

"Perhaps." 

So much for diplomacy. Restraining the urge to do something inadvisable and violent, Haytham let out a long, slow breath, that crinkled and turned to steam in the air. Fishing out the precursor amulet from within his shirt, he held it up. "Have you seen this before?"

The man made a show of looking at it, then he frowned, and leaned forward, narrowing his eyes. "Where did you get that?"

"So you have. In a cave, perhaps?" Hope loosened his tongue and turned his tone urgent; at that, the wolf-hooded man straightened up, instantly wary, and Haytham silently kicked himself. "My order believes that it's the key to defeating Washington. Look. I understand why you do not trust me. If I were you, I would not trust me either. So I propose a deal. I'll help you and your people with your resistance, and-"

"Braddock," the man interrupted abruptly. "Get rid of him. Then we will talk." 

" _Braddock?_ Why not ask for the _moon_ while you're at it? He's Washington's _mentor_. The man's holed up in-" Haytham caught himself as the wolf-hooded man began to get to his feet. "Fine. I'll help you with Braddock." It wasn't going to be impossible, but it was going to be a bloody pain in the arse to organize. 

"Good." The wolf-hooded man seemed briefly surprised.

"What is your name?"

"Why bother asking? You would not be able to speak it."

It took a few breaths for Haytham to swallow his next burst of irritation. "Try me."

"Ratonhnhaké:ton. My name," Ratonhnhaké:ton clarified, his expression clearly carefully kept neutral.

"... All right. Perhaps I see why that may be somewhat difficult to manage."

"Achilles Davenport called me Connor." Ratonhnhaké:ton allowed, somewhat to Haytham's surprise. "You can use that. When you are ready to move against Braddock, send word to me through Johnson." 

"Look-" Haytham began, but Ratonhnhaké:ton's form again made that ghostly flicker, and he was high up on a branch, then on another, and then he was out of sight. 

It wasn't the cold that made Haytham suck in a breath to suppress a shiver. Since he was a child, he had always loved the impossible.

2.0.

Ratonhnhaké:ton was rather surprised when Kenway turned out to be useful after all. With Braddock killed, his forces would be in rout; dangerous as it was to pull Washington's attention away from New York, perhaps it was a necessary evil. Braddock's forces would no longer threaten the lands of the Iroquois nation.

On the other hand, now that Kenway was triumphant, he was annoyingly full of questions, as though helping Ratonhnhaké:ton do a favour allowed him full access to his people's secrets. 

"How did you kill that soldier from thirty paces?" Kenway had been badgering him with this all afternoon. They were within a tavern in a sympathetic township where Kenway and his closest conspirators often met to discuss their plans, and Ratonhnhaké:ton did not like being within these buildings of stone, where even Haytham's redcoats whispered among themselves at his presence. "I did not see you draw any weapon."

The Brothers had been swift and silent as usual, as much as Sister had wanted to act, but he merely shrugged again at the question, and added, pointedly, "You are being annoying."

"And you are being ungrateful," Kenway retorted; the Templar's tongue was viper quick. "Have you any idea how much trouble you've caused me, child? What if Washington was to come back from New York?"

"You knew the risk when you agreed to help me."

"You are a remarkably exasperating person, Connor."

"And you," Ratonhnhaké:ton snapped, irritated now, "Are as blind to the world as Washington."

"Am I?"

"You see only a resource when you look at the woods. Trees to be cut down for your houses and fires and forts-"

" _Your_ people also have fires and longhouses, and unless I'm greatly mistaken, they're _not_ made out of sand."

"That is not the same!" Ratonhnhaké:ton flared, angry at the comparison. "The vast stretches of forests that you have cleared will kill the forests eventually! You show no respect for the Mother!"

"It was Washington who ravaged your villages, Connor, not the Templars."

"You misunderstand. Perhaps on purpose," Ratonhnhaké:ton, however, had taken a breath to calm himself, and when Kenway relaxed fractionally he wondered, with some irritation, whether he had been cleverly manoeuvred. 

"It's called _focus_. Conflict doesn't help our cause."

" _You_ started it."

The admittedly childish remark made Kenway scowl, and despite himself, Ratonhnhaké:ton had to fight to keep his expression impassive. The Englishman had an extensive array of personality quirks that were... entertaining to trip up, and besides, Sister was still curious, and the Brothers were still amused. Ratonhnhaké:ton had not quite spoken the truth. Haytham Kenway was nothing like Washington, in his way; nothing like any man Ratonhnhaké:ton had ever met, white or Iroquois or not. He was a predator of the highest order, and yet he did not have a mind like Sister's, all talons and wildness and freedom; he did not have a mind like the Brothers', of pack and the grass-scents and the chase. He was something that waited and spun plans and calculated, every movement beautifully precise.

It was a pleasure to watch, if sometimes distracting. Ratonhnhaké:ton could understand Sister's curiosity, sometimes, and even the Brothers' amusement. Kenway killed as brutally and as naturally as a Sister, as a Brother, for all that he was not one of the First Children. Davenport had been dangerous, but he had not been like this.

"Let's just get to that temple of yours, or whatever it is," Kenway muttered. 

"Which I was going to show you to, if you had not dragged me here for 'drinks'." Ratonhnhaké:ton had never been particularly fond of alcohol; he had never been able to see the point of it.

"So much for even my token overtures of friendship," Kenway groused.

III.

Given Haytham's track record with the divine and his luck of late, the temple was extremely unhelpful, though Haytham could not quite say that it had been a thorough loss. Ratonhnhaké:ton's kiss had been sweet for all that it had come as an utter shock; clumsy as it was at first, he had learned quickly, although he had been spooked and run off when Haytham's hands had started to wander.

Haytham had no real personal preference for gender - that was one thing the Assassin and Templar Orders had in common at least: questions of gender were largely irrelevant within the Orders, and that included sexual preference. He _had_ been attracted to Ratonhnhaké:ton's wild grace, his sleek and powerful build, and most of all his inexplicable mystery, but Haytham had not thought to try to act on it. 

Ratonhnhaké:ton avoided him for a week before showing up abruptly one day when Haytham was riding through a forest path to check on another fort, startling the horse into rearing, and by the time Haytham managed to get the poor beast under control, Ratonhnhaké:ton had reappeared up on a tree, his face hidden by the wolf's head hood. 

"Could you not have walked up to the path like a normal person?" Haytham snapped, patting the neck of his spooked horse. 

"Sorry." Ratonhnhaké:ton did not sound sorry at all, and Haytham picked up a faint smirk before it smoothed away. The arsehole had done that on _purpose_. 

"What do you want?"

His terse tone seemed to make Ratonhnhaké:ton hesitate, then his form flickered, and he was closer, on a fallen log half risen from the deep snow, elbows over his knees. "The Clan Mother is speaking with the spirits about your pendant."

"Good luck with that," Haytham said dubiously, trying to control his skepticism. He could not see any real scientific reason behind Ratonhnhaké:ton's ability to randomly disappear and appear through space, or his ability to kill from a distance, and it seemed that Johnson had heard of similar, supernatural abilities among other natives. Besides, Washington's artefact was supernatural in nature; why wouldn't the natives have their own magic?

Using it was one thing, though. Asking it questions was far different.

"I'll like to know what they think," he found himself adding cautiously, and Ratonhnhaké:ton blinked at him, surprised. Haytham found that he was, in fact, curious about what the maybe-not-really-there spirits thought about the problem of Washington and his precursor pendant. That it was not so much a question of strategy but a slow realization, an understanding of exactly why the Iroquois people tended to fight so fiercely in defence of their lands. They shared a connection with it that the so-called more civilised races had lost.

Brother wolf, Sister eagle. Johnson had once mentioned that to him when they had discussed the Iroquois beliefs, on a slow night in winter, and-

"What did you say?" Ratonhnhaké:ton asked sharply, and Haytham realized awkwardly that he had spoken out aloud.

"Something that I heard of once. 'Brother wolf, Sister eagle'." When Ratonhnhaké:ton only shot him a strange look, Haytham added, with a trace of irritation, "It was a comment I overheard about your spirit-based religion."

" _Your_ stories are also spirit based," Ratonhnhaké:ton retorted, with some degree of his usual exasperating bullheadedness, but this time, Haytham wasn't rising to the bait. 

" _I_ have no religion, actually." 

"Of course you do," Ratonhnhaké:ton replied, sounding annoyed.

"And why is that?"

"Then," Ratonhnhaké:ton floundered for a moment, before adding, "How will you have a story about how the world is made? Why would you dream?"

"I'll leave that to the scientists to figure out," Haytham shrugged. "I have more pressing problems."

"You are a very stupid man," Ratonhnhaké:ton said pityingly, and when Haytham sucked in a tight, sharp breath, abruptly began to laugh. Realizing belatedly that he had been baited after all, Haytham tried to scowl, failed, to his surprise, and settled for rolling his eyes.

"Oh, very well, if you must. Have at it. Enjoy your juvenile little jibe at my expense."

"Brother wolf, Sister eagle," It took a short while for Ratonhnhaké:ton to recover his breath, and when he spoke again, his tone was sober. "You wanted to know how I could do what I could do. That is your answer. The earth is our Mother, and all her children our brothers and sisters. Sometimes we quarrel. Sometimes we help each other."

"If that's the case, why can't all of your people do what you do?" Haytham asked, curious. "You wouldn't need cannons or forts then, if you can fly, or kill people from a distance. Why, the Iroquois could probably drive Washington and his armies into the sea!"

"Because," Ratonhnhaké:ton began, hesitated, then he shook his head. "I must go. I will speak to you again when the Clan Mother has information."

"Wait," Haytham said quickly, and Ratonhnhaké:ton wavered, but remained where he was, tilting his head. "It is dangerous then? This thing that you can do?" At Ratonhnhaké:ton's sudden careful stillness, Haytham permitted himself a snort. "Why else would you refuse to speak about it?"

"I _may_ have just been trying to protect my people's ancestral secrets." Ratonhnhaké:ton was quickly developing a remarkable grasp of sarcasm. Haytham was a bad influence, perhaps. "But yes. It is dangerous. And it has claimed the life of many of the Iroquois until the Clan Mothers agreed to forbid the... method."

Haytham was so intensely curious now that it was almost like an ache, but with some difficulty he managed to swallow down his curiosity. "But still you do it."

"It is necessary," Ratonhnhaké:ton replied shortly, and disappeared; try as Haytham did to look around the treetops, he didn't see an answering flicker. After a while, disappointed, he urged the confused horse onwards. He'll have to ask Johnson to investigate, perhaps. Whatever it was that allowed Ratonhnhaké:ton to do what he could, it would be useful.

Johnson's discreet enquiries turned up nothing, save for another surprise appearance by Ratonhnhaké:ton, this time in the quiet stables behind the traveller's inn that Haytham had stopped over for the night. Instead of flickering abruptly into existence around him, however, this time Ratonhnhaké:ton walked into the stables. The horse closest to him whickered and snorted, and Ratonhnhaké:ton smirked when Haytham whirled, hidden blade at the ready.

"That could have been dangerous," Haytham noted pointedly.

"For you, perhaps." Ratonhnhaké:ton folded his arms. "You question my people through Johnson. Stop it."

"We haven't been exactly successful."

"Not yet." Ratonhnhaké:ton noted flatly. "But if you somehow manage to stumble on the truth, you will regret it."

" _You_ do it." 

"And so? You are not me."

"Whatever it is, I am sure that if you are capable of controlling it, then I-"

Again there was a flicker, then Haytham's horse snorted and whinnied when Ratonhnhaké:ton was abruptly standing right before him, crowding him against the wall of the horse's stall. The kiss was more of a bite, this time, and it still took him completely by surprise; he froze for a long and awkward moment before he belatedly tried to gentle the kiss, and Ratonhnhaké:ton merely growled and shoved him up against the cracked wood and kissed him harder. Their lips were bruised by the time Haytham finally managed to wrest control, and then Ratonhnhaké:ton was pliant again, allowing him the lead, big hands on his hips, shoulders tensing as Haytham stroked his fingers up gorgeously defined muscle. 

"This is a thoroughly uncivilised method of dispute resolution," Haytham muttered, when Ratonhnhaké:ton started to nip down the day's stubble to his jaw. He was growing hard in his breeches, affected by the musky scent of bark and leather that clung to Ratonhnhaké:ton, the easy strength in the grip of his hands, the soft panting gasps that he made against Haytham's throat as he followed his pulse with his tongue. 

"If you want to argue instead, we can argue," Ratonhnhaké:ton shot back, his teeth in the hollow of Haytham's neck now, worrying at the skin until Haytham shuddered and bit back a moan. 

"We're not exactly in _private_ , Connor." 

"The innkeeper and his wife are asleep, and you are the only guest."

"That is certainly not the only... My _horse_ is right over there!"

"So? It is a horse."

"Let _go_ of me you brute... what on earth... no you can't... the hay will get _everywhere_ ," Haytham protested, when Ratonhnhaké:ton somehow managed to balance him into the heap of hay outside of the stall. It was clean, at least, but it prickled, and as he squirmed Ratonhnhaké:ton laughed at him, low and rough and throaty and straddled him, taking his mouth again. Annoyed, Haytham wrestled him over, and Ratonhnhaké:ton sank down, smirking again, even when Haytham bit down on the meat of his throat with no real tenderness, by way of reproach. 

He hadn't rut with anyone out of a bed since he was a brash boy, and after the heat of the moment had passed and their breathing had slowed, Haytham was beginning to remember precisely why he'd given up on the blasted habit. Straw _did_ get everywhere. Ratonhnhaké:ton snorted when Haytham shifted gingerly against him, his long fingers sticky and rough between them, and Haytham let out a yelp as he gave their oversensitive, softening flesh a last quick squeeze. Glaring, he was about to snap at Ratonhnhaké:ton, when big fingers came up to a bruised mouth, and Ratonhnhaké:ton was licking at his soiled fingers, God in Heaven - Haytham's cock twitched in a thorny pulse of unwanted lust, and he swallowed loudly.

Ratonhnhaké:ton stared at him, as though surprised at the sound, and he dropped his hand when Haytham pulled himself up for a sloppy kiss, breathless and gasping. For all that Ratonhnhaké:ton had instigated both... incidents... he was remarkably innocent about it all, and it made Haytham's blood burn like nothing he had ever tried. God. Perhaps he _was_ turning into a dirty old lecher.

"I thought that older men would have more stamina."

"Why, you little-" And then sometimes that blasted boy would open his mouth and say something so utterly outrageous that... Ratonhnhaké:ton grinned at him, then began to smirk, even when Haytham growled and cuffed him. They snapped and grappled at each other until Haytham finally managed to pin Ratonhnhaké:ton against the stall, and of course he then had to try to kiss that bloody smirk off that infuriating boy's face and _well_. He was lost, so lost, and it was brilliant.

3.0.

Washington's hold on Boston had been shaken - Benjamin Franklin had been freed of his influence, and Haytham was organising a needlessly intricate plan to move against Putnam. The Templar seemed to delight in painfully detailed strategies, and the soldiers in Haytham's Fort Cross had long grown inured to his flights with Sister; they barely even glanced at him nowadays whenever he hopped up onto flagpoles or roofs. Bored of the fort after a quarter of an hour, Ratonhnhaké:ton decided to go running through the forest with the Brothers, exploring the dales and dips and cliffs that he already knew by heart, routing rabbits from the grass and watching the deer spring away through the weave of trees.

Perhaps it was telling how Sister always seemed to know when Haytham was looking for him; she would glance back in the direction of the fort, however far away they were, and when he borrowed her wings to return, it felt like they were going faster than usual. 

Haytham was in the forest, just outside the view of the guard towers, and he didn't even flinch when Ratonhnhaké:ton shed Sister's wings by his side. Pity. It used to be fun to make him twitch and yelp. "What?"

"Is it part of what you can do with your... spirits? Listening to voices over a distance?"

"Not voices," Ratonhnhaké:ton corrected, a little annoyed that Haytham was _still_ pressing the issue. " _Your_ voice."

He had said too much - Haytham stared at him with open surprise. "Mine? Why mine?"

Because Sister had her wings flared, as though waiting for Haytham to take flight, for them to chase each other in the updrafts as the eagles did, to bank and roll and share the fierce joy of the wind. Because the Brothers were circling and sniffing and bumping their translucent shoulders against and through their knees, tongues lolling, scenting them, waiting for the pack to run as one mind. Because the spirits always knew time as a river, and the human heart as a ripple, and they saw both the beginning and the end of its wake. 

But it was too soon yet to explain, and Ratonhnhaké:ton smirked instead, when he wanted to smile, and drawled, "You crash around in the forest like a blind bear, old man," and watched Haytham glower at him and sputter. "What did you want?"

"I wanted to see you," Haytham said, then flushed when Ratonhnhaké:ton arched an eyebrow. "To check if you had broken your stubborn neck running around like a madman."

Perhaps it was not too soon after all. Sister's wings clipped shut, then open again, and the Brothers were loping away, skipping back to wait, panting, the fat brush of their tails swaying, and Ratonhnhaké:ton fought the impulse to run with them, to walk the winds until his heart gave out. Before, he stopped himself out of the memory of duty, now- 

"We're due to return," Haytham reminded him, though he allowed himself to be pulled over, the buttons of his coat cold against Ratonhnhaké:ton's skin, his eyes wide and dark, fluttering shut when kissed, then his lips parted invitingly and _this_ he was always hungry for, even when sloppy, even with teeth or the sour of the night between them. From Ratonhnhaké:ton's shoulder, Sister took flight with a cry that only he could hear, harsh and wild, and in a way, this too between them both was something like flight, something like the chase, their fingers clutching at furs and catches and cloaks, their breaths mingling, gasps uneven. This too was perfect.


End file.
